Current Workout Routine

It seems like it’s been forever since I blogged! Life has been so crazy lately with kids activities, birthdays, work, and I’ve started training for another half marathon. I thought today I would share a bit about my current fitness routine and what I do to prepare for a half marathon.

A quick bit about how I started running half marathons – I’ve been active my whole life and played multiple sports growing up. After graduating high school I continued to run & occasionally lift light weights throughout college to stay in shape, however I never ran further than 3-4 miles and thought a half marathon was absolutely crazy. After having my oldest child and transitioning into being a stay at home mom, I realized I needed some kind of hobby and a fellow mom friend told me how she had started running half marathons after the birth of her child. I decided to give it a shot and started training, and after my first race I became absolutely hooked! For a number of years I consistently ran 3-4 half marathons a year. However, after the birth of my second son, I found it became harder to find the time to get longer runs in with juggling the schedules of 2 kids and have fallen away from races the past few years. But as the weather this winter has been incredible, I’ve been feeling really motivated to be outside as much as possible and have ramped up my mileage. Ev is at an age where he’s loving playing games on the iPad, so I bring him along in the jogging stroller and he’s perfectly content having snacks & playing games! I’ve also been doing BBG (Bikini Body Guide) for about a year and a half, although I admit I have not been consistent. (If you aren’t familiar it is a HIIT workout by trainer Kayla Itsines and it is all over social media!) One of my new years resolutions is to be consistent this year and continue to do it, even if I can only squeeze it in 2 times a week. I do feel it really does help my endurance and strength for running, and helps me exercise muscles that don’t normally get much with running!

The half marathon I’m running is on March 10th, and I’ve been increasing my mileage for the past 3-4 weeks now. Because I have been consistently running prior to starting training for the half, it is really just a matter of increasing my mileage. If you are new to running there are a lot of great guides online for preparing for a half and slowly increasing your mileage, as it will take longer than 2 months to prepare if you aren’t currently running at least 15-20 miles a week. (I really like the Jeff Galloway program for beginners!) I admit I am not a fan of sprint work and I know a lot of runners incorporate a day of sprint work to help improve their time, but I hate it so much that I don’t force myself to do it as I really just enjoy running the long distance rather than worrying about my time! I typically shoot for around a 1:50 run time, but I’m happy to be under 2 hours! Here’s what my typical week is looking like:

Sunday: Run 5-7 miles

Monday: Run 6-8 miles

Tuesday: BBG

Wednesday: Run 6-8 miles

Thursday: BBG

Friday: Run 9-10 miles

Saturday: BBG (or another activity like skiing)

I do plan to continue to increase my mileage a bit over the next few weeks and also get in at least one 11-12 mile run prior to the race!

This week my schedule was a little weird, so I’m swapping my workout days around a bit, and am actually headed out for my long Friday run today even though it’s Thursday. It’s going to be 65 degrees today, so it’s a perfect day to be outside for a long run! Thank you so much for stopping by!